239 research outputs found
Distinguishing cause from effect using observational data: methods and benchmarks
The discovery of causal relationships from purely observational data is a
fundamental problem in science. The most elementary form of such a causal
discovery problem is to decide whether X causes Y or, alternatively, Y causes
X, given joint observations of two variables X, Y. An example is to decide
whether altitude causes temperature, or vice versa, given only joint
measurements of both variables. Even under the simplifying assumptions of no
confounding, no feedback loops, and no selection bias, such bivariate causal
discovery problems are challenging. Nevertheless, several approaches for
addressing those problems have been proposed in recent years. We review two
families of such methods: Additive Noise Methods (ANM) and Information
Geometric Causal Inference (IGCI). We present the benchmark CauseEffectPairs
that consists of data for 100 different cause-effect pairs selected from 37
datasets from various domains (e.g., meteorology, biology, medicine,
engineering, economy, etc.) and motivate our decisions regarding the "ground
truth" causal directions of all pairs. We evaluate the performance of several
bivariate causal discovery methods on these real-world benchmark data and in
addition on artificially simulated data. Our empirical results on real-world
data indicate that certain methods are indeed able to distinguish cause from
effect using only purely observational data, although more benchmark data would
be needed to obtain statistically significant conclusions. One of the best
performing methods overall is the additive-noise method originally proposed by
Hoyer et al. (2009), which obtains an accuracy of 63+-10 % and an AUC of
0.74+-0.05 on the real-world benchmark. As the main theoretical contribution of
this work we prove the consistency of that method.Comment: 101 pages, second revision submitted to Journal of Machine Learning
Researc
Decision Sciences, Economics, Finance, Business, Computing, and Big Data: Connections
This paper provides a review of some connecting literature in Decision Sciences, Economics,
Finance, Business, Computing, and Big Data. We then discuss some research that is related to the
six cognate disciplines. Academics could develop theoretical models and subsequent econometric
and statistical models to estimate the parameters in the associated models. Moreover, they could
then conduct simulations to examine whether the estimators or statistics in the new theories on
estimation and hypothesis have small size and high power. Thereafter, academics and practitioners
could then apply their theories to analyze interesting problems and issues in the six disciplines and
other cognate areas
Information-Theoretic Causal Discovery
It is well-known that correlation does not equal causation, but how can we infer causal relations from data? Causal discovery tries to answer precisely this question by rigorously analyzing under which assumptions it is feasible to infer causal networks from passively collected, so-called observational data. Particularly, causal discovery aims to infer a directed graph among a set of observed random variables under assumptions which are as realistic as possible. A key assumption in causal discovery is faithfulness. That is, we assume that separations in the true graph imply independencies in the distribution and vice versa. If faithfulness holds and we have access to a perfect independence oracle, traditional causal discovery approaches can infer the Markov equivalence class of the true causal graph---i.e., infer the correct undirected network and even some of the edge directions. In a real-world setting, faithfulness may be violated, however, and neither do we have access to such an independence oracle. Beyond that, we are interested in inferring the complete DAG structure and not just the Markov equivalence class. To circumvent or at least alleviate these limitations, we take an information-theoretic approach. In the first part of this thesis, we consider violations of faithfulness that can be induced by exclusive or relations or cancelling paths, and develop a weaker faithfulness assumption, called 2-adjacency faithfulness, to detect some of these mechanisms. Further, we analyze under which conditions it is possible to infer the correct DAG structure even if such violations occur. In the second part, we focus on independence testing via conditional mutual information (CMI). CMI is an information-theoretic measure of dependence based on Shannon entropy. We first suggest estimating CMI for discrete variables via normalized maximum likelihood instead of the plug-in maximum likelihood estimator that tends to overestimate dependencies. On top of that, we show that CMI can be consistently estimated for discrete-continuous mixture random variables by simply discretizing the continuous parts of each variable. Last, we consider the problem of distinguishing the two Markov equivalent graphs X to Y and Y to X, which is a necessary step towards discovering all edge directions. To solve this problem, it is inevitable to make assumptions about the generating mechanism. We build upon the idea which states that the cause is algorithmically independent of its mechanism. We propose two methods to approximate this postulate via the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle: one for univariate numeric data and one for multivariate mixed-type data. Finally, we combine insights from our MDL-based approach and regression-based methods with strong guarantees and show we can identify cause and effect via L0-regularized regression
The Minimum Description Length Principle for Pattern Mining: A Survey
This is about the Minimum Description Length (MDL) principle applied to
pattern mining. The length of this description is kept to the minimum.
Mining patterns is a core task in data analysis and, beyond issues of
efficient enumeration, the selection of patterns constitutes a major challenge.
The MDL principle, a model selection method grounded in information theory, has
been applied to pattern mining with the aim to obtain compact high-quality sets
of patterns. After giving an outline of relevant concepts from information
theory and coding, as well as of work on the theory behind the MDL and similar
principles, we review MDL-based methods for mining various types of data and
patterns. Finally, we open a discussion on some issues regarding these methods,
and highlight currently active related data analysis problems
Learning Bayesian network equivalence classes using ant colony optimisation
Bayesian networks have become an indispensable tool in the modelling of uncertain
knowledge. Conceptually, they consist of two parts: a directed acyclic graph called the
structure, and conditional probability distributions attached to each node known as the
parameters. As a result of their expressiveness, understandability and rigorous mathematical basis, Bayesian networks have become one of the first methods investigated,
when faced with an uncertain problem domain. However, a recurring problem persists
in specifying a Bayesian network. Both the structure and parameters can be difficult for
experts to conceive, especially if their knowledge is tacit.To counteract these problems, research has been ongoing, on learning both the structure
and parameters of Bayesian networks from data. Whilst there are simple methods for
learning the parameters, learning the structure has proved harder. Part ofthis stems from
the NP-hardness of the problem and the super-exponential space of possible structures.
To help solve this task, this thesis seeks to employ a relatively new technique, that has
had much success in tackling NP-hard problems. This technique is called ant colony
optimisation. Ant colony optimisation is a metaheuristic based on the behaviour of ants
acting together in a colony. It uses the stochastic activity of artificial ants to find good
solutions to combinatorial optimisation problems. In the current work, this method is
applied to the problem of searching through the space of equivalence classes of Bayesian
networks, in order to find a good match against a set of data. The system uses operators
that evaluate potential modifications to a current state. Each of the modifications is
scored and the results used to inform the search. In order to facilitate these steps, other
techniques are also devised, to speed up the learning process. The techniques includeThe techniques are tested by sampling data from gold standard networks and learning
structures from this sampled data. These structures are analysed using various goodnessof-fit measures to see how well the algorithms perform. The measures include structural
similarity metrics and Bayesian scoring metrics. The results are compared in depth
against systems that also use ant colony optimisation and other methods, including
evolutionary programming and greedy heuristics. Also, comparisons are made to well
known state-of-the-art algorithms and a study performed on a real-life data set. The
results show favourable performance compared to the other methods and on modelling
the real-life data
Untangling hotel industryâs inefficiency: An SFA approach applied to a renowned Portuguese hotel chain
The present paper explores the technical efficiency of four hotels from Teixeira Duarte Group - a renowned Portuguese hotel chain. An efficiency ranking is established from these four hotel units located in Portugal using Stochastic Frontier Analysis. This methodology allows to discriminate between measurement error and systematic inefficiencies in the estimation process enabling to investigate the main inefficiency causes. Several suggestions concerning efficiency improvement are undertaken for each hotel studied.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
Integrating Decision Heuristics And Behavioural Refinements Into Travel Choice Models
Discrete choice modelling has become the preferred empirical context to study individualsâ preferences and willingness to pay. Although the outcome is important in decision making, so is the process that individuals adopt to assist them in reaching a decision. Both should be considered when analysing individual behaviour as they represent jointly the endogeneity of choice. Traditional choice studies assume, in the main, a linear in the parameters additive in the attributes (LPAA) approach, where individuals are rational, take into account all the attributes and alternatives presented to them when reaching a decision, and value the attribute levels exactly as were presented in the popular choice experiment paradigm. This has not always been shown to be a behaviourally valid representation of choice response, and there is a growing literature on the role of a number of alternative decision process strategies that individuals use when facing a decision, which are often referred to as heuristics, or simply as process rules. The majority of choice studies also assume that respondents have a risk attitude that is risk neutral (i.e., a risky alternative is indifferent to a sure alternative of equal expected value) and that they perceive the levels of attributes in choice experiments in a way that suggests the absence of perceptual conditioning. Considering each in turn, there are people who are risk adverse, risk taking or risk neutral, and this heterogeneity in risk attitude does influence individualsâ decisions when faced with different choice scenarios. Heterogeneity is also present for perceptual conditioning in cases where there is variability in the outcomes of an attribute(s), which allows for differences between the stated probability of occurrence (in a choice experiment) and the perceived probability used when evaluating the prospect. Finally, the (accumulated) experience that individualsâ have with each alternative might also influence their decisions. The objective of this research is to integrate multiple decision process strategies, Value Learning (VL) and Relative Advantage Maximisation (RAM) in particular, alongside the traditional LPAA âprocess ruleâ with behavioural refinements (i.e., risk attitudes, perceptual conditioning and overt experience), to take into account process endogeneity in choice responses. A novel approach is used to include process heterogeneity, referred to as conditioning of random process heterogeneity, where the mean and standard deviation of the parameters normally defined under an LPAA heuristic are conditioned by process strategies. This approach takes into account the relationship between process heterogeneity and preference heterogeneity, of particular interest in studies that integrate random parameters and process strategies. The model performance results and willingness to pay estimates are compared to those obtained when using a probabilistic decision process method, increasingly used in the choice literature to accommodate process heterogeneity
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